Editorial:
Who's
a
Fraud?
7/2/98
Over the past several weeks, recriminations by the principals of the Drug War against virtually anybody who advocates changes in drug policy have gotten ugly. Drug War officials have used words like "devious", "cabal" and "fraud", when referring to reformers and their ideas. Interestingly, in their quest to frighten the public into ignoring their opposition, the drug warriors have opened themselves even further to substantiated charges that it is they who are being less than honest. In testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Barry McCaffrey characterized the ultimate goals of reformers as leading to "heroin being sold at the corner store to children with false identifications, the driver of an eighteen-wheeler high on methamphetamines traveling alongside the family mini-van, (and) skyrocketing numbers of addicts draining society of its productivity." Scare tactics such as these, mischaracterizing the aims of his ideological opposition, are so blatantly disingenuous that they threaten to destroy whatever little credibility McCaffrey has left. And little credibility it is. This week, the University of Kentucky will release a study flatly refuting McCaffrey's repeated claim that there is no economic benefit to legalizing hemp as an industrial crop. In fact, the study concludes, the current demand is such that hemp would immediately become the second most valuable legal crop in the state, behind only tobacco. This will likely make it more difficult for McCaffrey to snidely deride "the opinions of noted agronomists like (actor) Woody Harrelson" and those who would "create a false issue for the purpose of legalizing marijuana." But McCaffrey's short history as Drug Czar indicates that he will try, despite the mounting evidence against him. Syringe exchange, medical marijuana, on one issue after another, drug warriors on both sides of the aisle have been shown to be willing to lie, and lie repeatedly, in defense of their war. So what is the answer? How will reform efforts, efforts to cut the overwhelming number of young black males in the criminal justice system (one in three, nationally), efforts to slow the spread of AIDS through meaningful intervention with the addicted, efforts to secure access to adequate medication for people suffering with chronic pain, efforts to stop blatantly out-of-control seizures of property, efforts to provide access to marijuana for cancer, glaucoma and other patients who find it effective, efforts to demilitarize domestic law enforcement, efforts to restrain growing government surveillance of private citizens, efforts to rein in wholesale corruption, efforts to stop the spraying of poisons on the rain forest and its peoples, efforts to curb the astounding enrichment of organized crime organizations across the globe, efforts to take control of the drug trade and to put it into the hands of responsible, well-regulated professionals and out of the reach of children, how will these efforts succeed in the face of all of these lies? By telling the truth, and telling it repeatedly. Americans are only now beginning to take notice of drug policy. That is why the drug warriors are expanding so rapidly their strategy of deceit. It is important, even imperative to the future of the Republic, and to the future of our children, that their lies are met by a constant and growing chorus of truth from those who oppose their dirty war. Talk to your friends, to your neighbors, to your parents and your colleagues. Talking about drug policy doesn't make you "pro-drug", or a hippie, or a liberal, or a libertarian, or even a rebel or a nut. What it makes you is an American, concerned for the values of your nation. And those values, far from being quaint, are as important now as they have ever been. It is no longer enough to believe that Prohibition is bad policy. The time to act is upon us. There can be no more excuses. No embarrassed silence. You must seek out whoever will listen, and especially those who you fear will never understand, and you must tell them the truth. And show them. Because Prohibition IS bad policy. Disastrous policy. And no amount of lying by those who would continue to profit from evil can change that fact. Adam J. Smith
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